Friday, March 12, 2010

Is American Living Out the Prophesies of Star Trek?

Yes, this is a tongue-in-cheek blog entry. I am no Trekkie...but being of the age where I grew up on the original series, I've certainly watched every episode more than once. But you'll never see me winning a Star Trek trivia contest, or wearing some Vulcan ears to a Star Trek Convention. Just not my thing.

That being said, I couldn't help but notice recently how some of the original series episodes so closely resemble the events of our country today. Even down to the way the original communicators and tri-quarters looked compared to our present day cell phones and smart phones. But this blog is not about that...its about the episodes that seem to so strongly parallel our present day world.

Here's a short list of the episodes that came to mind:

Season One, Episode 8 – Miri

After discovering what appears to be a duplicate of the planet Earth, Captain Kirk and his landing party find a population ravaged by a strange disease, which has two effects: children are granted extraordinarily long life, but anyone who reaches puberty (including the adult landing party) develop painful sores which eventually kill the infected. The oldest child, a girl named Miri, develops a jealous affection for Captain Kirk, and works with the other children to kidnap Janice Rand after Kirk attempts to comfort the frightened yeoman.The irony that our country would now be run by a bunch of over-aged, petulant kids is not lost to the average person.

Season One, Episode 9 – Dagger of the Mind

At Tantalus V, a rehabilitation colony for the criminally insane, the inmates have taken over the asylum using a neural neutralizer, which is used to remove (or implant) memories from a subject's mind. One colony administrator, Simon van Gelder, escapes to the Enterprise, leading Captain Kirk to investigate the colony. While on the surface, Kirk is brainwashed and taken prisoner, but is helped by Dr. Helen Noel, a colleague from the Enterprise who joined him on the planet. Spock performs a mind-meld with van Gelder to counteract the effects of the neutralizer, healing his mind and allowing van Gelder to take over the colony after Kirk and Noel's rescue.Our White House is overrun by the politically insane. They want to ruin this country. They have slowly and methodically brainwashed the unwitting public through a takeover of the education system and mass media.

Season One, Episode 17 – The Squire of Gothos

The Enterprise discovers a rogue planet drifting through space, inhabited by an eccentric being named Trelane who uses his apparently unlimited power over matter and form to manipulate the crew.One of the most obvious of all Star Trek prophesies. Trelane is the son of a god who toys with humans, manipulating them, playing games and eventually growing angry when they don’t go along with what he wants. Trelane is my new name for Barack Hussein Obama. ..our little god king.

Season Two, Episode 52 – The Omega Glory

This is my favorite episode. And although the ending isn’t quite to my liking, it doesn’t detract from the enormously profound message to us all.

The episode begins with the USS Enterprise finding the USS Exeter in orbit around the planet Omega IV. Captain Kirk forms a boarding party with Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Lt. Galloway, and beams over to find the other ship deserted, save for scattered crew uniforms with a crystalline substance scattered in and around them — the total chemicals in the human body when all water is removed. The team learns from the ship's logs that the Exeter's landing party contracted a strange disease on the planet and spread it back to the ship. The logs warn that they have now been exposed and will die unless they go down to the planet; returning to their own ship would only expose their own ship's crew to the disease.

Kirk's party beams to the last coordinates of the Exeter's landing party and find themselves in what resembles a Tibetan village where two fur-clad prisoners, a man and woman, are being prepared for a beheading by warriors of Asian appearance. Leading the warriors is the Exeter's Captain Ron Tracey who stands down the execution and greets Kirk. Tracey explains he was stranded when his crew succumbed to a disease, and only remaining on the planet confers immunity. He assures the landing party they will be safe, but only if they stay on the planet. Tracey then explains the prisoners are from a group of savage barbarians called the "Yangs" who wage war with the villagers called the "Kohms".

Soon, the Yangs attack the village and Galloway is injured. McCoy takes him into a hut for treatment while Spock investigates a pile of Yang bodies. He finds drained phaser power packs, clear evidence that Tracey helped in a previous battle in a blatant violation of the Prime Directive. Kirk tries to contact the Enterprise, but Tracey suddenly interrupts him and forcibly takes his communicator. When Galloway tries to defend Kirk, Tracey disintegrates him. He defends his actions, saying the planet offers valuable medical benefits — not only are the people immune to the disease, but they also have incredibly long life spans. He presents a villager who claims to be 462 years old with a father who is over a thousand.

Tracey orders McCoy to get to work on solving the secrets of their longevity and has Kirk and Spock taken away. The two are placed in a crude jail with Spock in one cell and Kirk thrown in one with the two Yang prisoners. The Yangs savagely attack him until Spock manages to nerve pinch the female into submission and the male stops in concern. When Kirk plots an escape, he mentions the word "freedom" to Spock, and the Yang male suddenly objects to an "enemy" uttering a "Yang worship word". Kirk convinces the Yang to help loosen the bars of the cell window. Once an opening is created, the Yang knocks Kirk out and takes the woman with him out the window. When Kirk recovers, he and Spock make their own escape.

Reuniting with McCoy, Spock works at modifying some medical equipment into a makeshift communicator. McCoy believes the natives' immunity to disease and longevity was simply the result of natural evolution; the inhabitants developed disease-resistant, hardy physiologies as a result of a cataclysmic war. As such, there is no isolated agent to find and any infected visitor naturally acquires an immunity in a short period of time on the planet.

Suddenly, a maddened Tracey bursts in and destroys the communicator with his phaser. He demands that Kirk order down a supply of phasers from the Enterprise to help fight off another wave of Yang forces. McCoy and Kirk try to explain that there is no Fountain of Youth, adding that the natives live such long lives because it's natural for them to. Kirk declares that Tracey's interference with the war between the natives has been for nothing. Tracey's mind snaps at this invalidation of all his efforts. He forces Kirk outside and demands that he order down the weapons. Kirk calls Lt. Sulu; however, Sulu insists on finding out the captain's situation before complying with the order, asking Kirk if he should have a security team beam down. Kirk refuses to explain why the arms are needed and tells Sulu the security team is not needed. Once again, Kirk tries to wrestle Tracey's phaser away, but fails. He escapes Tracey, momentarily, but is captured. Tracey is about to disintegrate Kirk, but he discovers his phaser is out of power.

The two fight over a nearby axe when Yang warriors suddenly arrive and take everyone back to their village, which appears as ruins of an ancient building. Their leader, Cloud William, turns out to be the prisoner who was in the cell with Kirk. Cloud curiously produces a very old American Flag and removes ancient manuscripts from a box where he begins to recite words — a poorly pronounced version of the Pledge of Allegiance. When Kirk completes the pledge, the Yangs are shocked. McCoy questions how they know the pledge, and Spock surmises that the cultures may have developed along very similar lines to Earth. Kirk speculates that the Kohms were originally "Communists" and Yangs originally "Yankees". Apparently, the Omegans had a Cold War much like the one between the United States and the Soviet Union, but unlike Earth, their war heated up and a conflict was fought many centuries ago. Even Spock found the parallel between the two worlds to be "almost too close."

The Yangs decide that Kirk and his companions will be executed, but Tracey tries to save himself by claiming that Kirk and the others are evil. Tracey tries to convince Cloud that Kirk and his party were cast out of Heaven, implying that Spock is "Satan." This is added to by the fact that their rendition of Satan does very much resemble a Vulcan (or perhaps a Romulan). In order to add credibility to his claim, Tracey informs Cloud that Spock "has no heart," knowing that the Yang chief is unaware of Vulcan physiology and doesn't realize the Vulcan's heart is not located in the chest cavity (as it is in humans and apparently also in Omegans). Despite McCoy's and Kirk's attempts to convince Cloud that the Vulcan is no devil, but just physiologically different, Cloud is not fully convinced and asks Kirk to complete the "sacred words" starting with 'E Plebneesta' from an ancient document he produced. Unfortunately, Kirk cannot quite decipher the words, despite their familiarity, and suggests instead that he and Tracey duel to the death — stating good always triumphs over evil. As Kirk and Tracey begin to fight, Spock notices a communicator near Cloud's female companion, and makes a mental suggestion which causes her to pick it up and activate it. (Neither she nor Spock speak into the communicator, but the implication is that she activated its emergency-alert signal.) Soon, just as Kirk subdues Tracey, Sulu and a security detail beam down to investigate the situation. Kirk spares Tracey's life and has him taken into custody to face Federation charges.

The Yangs now bow to Kirk as a deity, but he orders them to stand and face him. He looks over the ancient, crumbling document, which appears to be a distorted version of the American Constitution. Kirk finishes the sacred speech and rebukes the Yangs for allowing the document to degrade to mere shibboleth. He declares that the words were not just for the Yangs, but for Kohms, as well, declaring that they "must apply to everyone or they mean nothing." Cloud doesn't fully understand, but swears to Kirk that the "holy words" will be obeyed. Kirk smiles at Cloud, convinced that the Yangs, along with the Kohms, will now rebuild their ruined world. Before departing, Kirk stops to take one last proud look at Old Glory.

Season Three, Episode 75 – The Way to Eden

The Enterprise is hijacked by a criminal doctor and his loyal, hippie-like followers who are attempting to find paradise.The description says it all….our fearless president and his band of radical hippies are trying to lead us all to paradise.

If you can think of any other episodes that you think can add to this blog, let me know.